Halle Berry’s ‘Extant’ leads in TV ratings

NEW YORK – Halle Berry made her small screen debut at a spot befitting an Academy Award winner – first place in the television ratings – but it’s too early to call her summer drama “Extant” a hit.

The limited run series, in which Berry plays an astronaut who mysteriously returns from a solo space mission pregnant, had 9.6 million viewers for its first episode on CBS last week, the Nielsen Co. said.

That was enough to make it the most-watched prime-time show during the week. By comparison, the second-season debut of “Under the Dome” a week earlier had 9.4 million viewers, a number considered disappointing given its hit status a year earlier.

With time-shifted viewing within three days of the premiere added in – people who watched a recording afterward – “Under the Dome” had 13.2 million viewers. The extra days boosted the total viewership for “Extant” to 11.9 million.

NBC’s “Welcome to Sweden,” a comedy starring Amy Poehler’s younger brother Greg, debuted Thursday with 3.5 million viewers. That made it the No. 58 show for the week.

CBS easily won the week in prime time, averaging 5.6 million viewers. NBC had 4.6 million, ABC had 4.3 million, Univision had 2.8 million, Fox had 2.7 million.